


Catching Smoke

by star_otocinclus



Category: Star Trek, Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Death, Mind Meld, Star Trek: Into Darkness, daystrom
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-02
Updated: 2017-12-02
Packaged: 2019-02-09 11:27:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 703
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12886872
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/star_otocinclus/pseuds/star_otocinclus
Summary: "He lifted his hand to Pike’s face and gently placed his fingers where they needed to go." - Spock's perspective in the Daystrom conference room.





	Catching Smoke

“Clear the room!”

Dazzling green and white shots lit up the darkened conference room. With a loud screech, the woman sitting next to Spock was thrown back from the table. The piercing sound of the phaser fire overwhelmed his sensitive Vulcan ears. The sounds of destruction faded to a dull roar as an ear-splitting whine took over.

Spock dropped to the ground, keeping low and crawled to the edge of the room. He looked up trying to get his bearings. Bodies littered the ground around him, some dead, others dying. Glass still rained down over them as the attacker kept firing. He caught sight or Admiral Pike, who had sought shelter behind a table. “We need an air defense team! Daystrom conference room!” he shouted over the wail of the phasers.

Armed officers flooded the room, some were immediately struck down in the chaos. Spock saw Jim get up from where he was lying and desperately ran out into a hall way and out of his sight, phaser rifle in hand.

Spock shuffled around, moving further out of the way and towards an admiral he did not know. Before he could check for signs of life, a loud groan punctured the ringing in his ears. Pike’s table had been shot and he was thrown by the impact into the middle of the room. Right in the firing line. Pike briefly made eye contact with Spock. Terror and dread marked plainly on his face.

Spock abandoned the other admiral and dove out into the open. He shoved his arms under Pike’s and hauled him up. Spock dragged him into the next room, his boots crunched through the glass and he almost slipped on some blood. Pike groaned again as Spock laid him on the couch, but unlike before, it was weak and pained. His breathing picked up and his gaze locked onto Spock. Blood, red and human, seeped from the corner of his mouth, pooling in the lines of his face. Pike grabbed Spock’s wrist instinctively, he was in far too much pain to really be aware of what he was doing. They broke eye contact as the strength in his body left and his head rolled back, Pike’s hand fell from Spock’s wrist.

His breaths grew shorter and more strained, Spock felt a rare moment of helplessness. His mentor and friend while he had taught at the academy was living his last moments before him and he could do nothing but watch as he slipped away.

Spock stopped. Maybe there was something he could do.

He lifted his hand to Pike’s face and gently placed his fingers where they needed to go.

_My mind to your mind, my thoughts to your thoughts…_

Overpowering waves of pain and fear and terror and _please no_ and _oh Phil_ and _where’s mother?_ assaulted Spock’s mind. He struggled against it. The raw panic and distress almost broke their connection, but Spock pushed on.

He did what little he could to shield Pike from the worst of the pain. His head rolled slightly to the side and he caught Spock’s eyes again. Not in words, but in impressions, feelings, and fleeting pieces of memory he asked Spock, _tell them I love them_. Tiny snapshots of Phil, his parents, his old officers on the Olympia, Jim, Number One, and others who Spock didn’t know fluttered before him, each fading and disappearing as he grew weaker still.

A new pain appeared, one Spock couldn’t shield Pike from though he tried his hardest to. It grew, pulling Pike further from the comfort Spock provided.

Another memory surfaced. One from the days after Nero. Pike was lying in a hospital on earth, awake and alive. Spock saw himself and Jim sitting by his bed through Pike’s eyes.

_I’m proud of you._

_Both of you._

He stressed those last words as their contact was abruptly broken. Spock desperately clutched for whatever strands of broken consciousness he could find, but like trying to catch smoke with your bare hands, everything dissipated and faded until nothing was left.

He was distantly aware of Jim arriving beside him, but he was too caught in his own shock to do much more than watch as Jim cried.


End file.
